This is the joint website of Women Against Rape and Black Women's Rape Action Project. Both organisations are based on self-help and provide support, legal information and advocacy. We campaign for justice and protection for all women and girls, including asylum seekers, who have suffered sexual, domestic and/or racist violence.

WAR was founded in 1976. It has won changes in the law, such as making rape in marriage a crime, set legal precedents and achieved compensation for many women. BWRAP was founded in 1991. It focuses on getting justice for women of colour, bringing out the particular discrimination they face. It has prevented the deportation of many rape survivors. Both organisations are multiracial.

Deportations

A heart-breaking case of a vulnerable rape survivor who was forcibly removed back to Uganda is being considered by the European Court of Human Rights. Final representations were submitted in June by a pro-bono legal team co-ordinated by Women Against Rape (WAR). The case turns on whether the court agrees that the UK government breached Articles 3 (Prohibition of torture*) and 8 (Right to respect for private and family life**) of the European Convention of Human Rights when they insisted on deporting Ms FN despite overwhelming evidence and an immigration judge’s decision that her rights would be breached if they did.

Mary says: 'The immigration escorts dragged us to the plane. They were pulling my hair and my braids fell out'

In the run-up to the 2001 elections in my country in East Africa, I was campaigning for an opposition group when some government soldiers kidnapped me in front of my children. I was raped and tortured and they starved me. After about a month, one of the soldiers accidentally left the door open and I escaped. I decided that I had to leave the country with my children.

After we had been in England for a few years, we were woken up at 5am by a loud bang at the door. A man shouted: "Open up! Immigration." We'd had no warning we were going to be deported. We were caged in the back of a van like prisoners and they wouldn't let me take my medication for depression.